A Senior Program Officer at the Center for Information Technology and Development, (CITAD), Isah Garba, says the Kano State government has no constitutional right to regulate the use of Social media.
The Kano State Hisbah Board recently revealed that it was planning to regulate social media in collaboration with the Kano State Censorship Board (KSCB).
The Executive Director of KSCB, Ismail Na’abba Afakallah, told newsmen that social media, especially Tik Tok, has enabled influencers to engage in immoral and indecent acts.
In reaction, however, the CITAD officer, Isah Garba admonished the Hisbah Board and the Kano State Censorship Board to sensitize the Kano populace on the proper use of social media rather than regulate them.
"Kano State has no power to regulate social media.
"The power to regulate social media content is vested in the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA.
“Even though NITDA has the responsibility of regulating content, this goes with a lot of controversies," he enlightened.
Mr. Garba who featured on Wazobia FM Kano’s 'We Tori Dommot' on Monday disagreed with the report that immoral content on Tik Tok is responsible for the rising divorce cases in the state.
He stated that divorce was always a problem before the advent of technology.
"This is just a speculation of some people. There is no evidence-based research that shows that social media is the causative agent of marriage separation in Kano.
"There has been intensive divorce before the advent of the use of social media," he said.
He asserted that policing morality online would be a difficult task if not an impossibility.
"Are Hisbah and the Kano State Censorship Board effectively controlling the moral aspect of our younger people offline? If they can do that effectively, that means they can do that online.
"This is something that is on the clout. If probably people in Kano are being regulated that they cannot use immoral things on Tik Tok, would that prevent the influx of immodest Tik Tok messages coming from outside Kano?
"People are just translating what they do offline online. The only difference between what we see online and what is happening in the physical aspects of our lives is the number of our outreach. For the offline, you need to be there to see for yourself
"What we are even fearing to see on Tik Tok, there are instances where we see those immoral things physically and Hisbah was incapacitated to take action against the people who perpetrated that."
He further noted the artificial intelligence algorithm of social media only refers people to immoral content when they show an interest in such.
